It turns out that TRIMET management has been aware of this operators difficulties in dealing with passengers for some time now and had agreed that when she ran into problems they would immediately come to her assistance.

Apparently that assistance was not around when needed the most . There is much more to this story than what is currently available .

Management had been working with her in dealing with the difficult people and situations that occur during our workday.

This comes from Jeff Ackerson, Merlo union representative, who is currently on vacation.

It also needs to be said that this operator has an excellent record of safe operation of the bus.

A bus operator has to have a variety of qualities, but if you want to rank in them in terms of importance, being able to handle the vehicle safely is the most important.

While this whole event has been sensationalized beyond it's actual importance and damage done, once the hysteria clears, people might be able to realize that this entire event was indeed the product of an overworked and over stressed operator, a screaming child and a mob of angry passengers, which all together created a sensational media event, but in reality it was a non event.

Nobody got hurt, the woman got home, apparently picked up by her husband and the irate passengers all boarded the next bus.

Remember Marshall McLuhan,THE MEDIA IS THE MESSAGE, and that has been made completely clear in this case.

That the 'victim' in this non-event has not bothered to call Trimet with any sort of complaint.
Obviously she must have seen it on one of the news channels or in the paper.
So why isn't she complaining about this "horrible" driver?
My thought, because maybe she realizes that this was a bad situation and not 100% the drivers fault?

And here is one voice of reason amongst the crowd of hysterics, this is posted by one of the riders on that bus to the KATU website:

It has been brought to my attention that a student in one of these 're-certification' classes has taken offense to being presented with a retirement form as an option to doing what was being taught in that class.

Apparently the instructor created "a hostile and abusive" workplace by threatening peoples employment if they did not do what they were told.

I've heard about this tactic, although I did not experience this during my training class however.

The report shows that America’s public transit systems carried more than 10 billion passenger trips for the fifth consecutive year in 2010, the highest levels since 1957. It also shows support for better public transportation through public approval of transit ballot measures. These ballot measures have a 73 percent approval rate over the past 12 years.

SEC. 501. (c) Any person who embezzles, steals, or unlawfully and willfully abstracts or converts to his own use, or the use of another, any of the moneys, funds, securities, property, or other assets of a labor organization of which he is an officer, or by which he is employed, directly or indirectly, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.

Too bad this blog is just a hobby from which I get no remuneration. With this latest crazy (non) story readership has gone through the roof. I was curious which was the #1 traffic source for my blog with all the hoopla, and THIS is the top referring site!

The Transport Workers Union Local 100, which said last week that it’s supporting the protests, asked U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer to prohibit the New York City Police Department and the New York City Transit Authority from requiring drivers to transport such protesters.